Dismantling of sunk Russian nuclear sub "nearly complete"

MOSCOW (AFP) Sep 17, 2003
The process of dismantling a Russian nuclear submarine which was lost in August 2000 with the loss of 118 lives is almost complete, the Russian atomic energy ministry announced Wednesday.

The Kursk sank in 108 metres (360 feet) of water in the Barents Sea after an explosion in a torpedo compartment. After a national outcry over the initial lack of reaction by the authorities the wreck was raised to the surface in October 2001 and taken to the Nerpa military base at Murmansk in the north of the country.

Experts dismantled the cruise missiles aboard the boat and then the nuclear reactor.

"The submarine's hull will be cut into pieces and the reactor compartments sealed. They are ready to be put in a secure place," ministry spokesman Nicolai Tchingarev said, quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency,

"Only the upper part of the submarine remains. It will displayed in a museum."

A second Russian nuclear submarine, the K-159, decommissioned in 1989, sank in the Barents Sea on August 30 this year while being towed to a yard to be dismantled.

Only one of the 10 crew survived.

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